Southaven aldermen fail to justify Mayor Greg Davis' $44K receipts

The Southaven Board of Aldermen said the "vast majority" of the $44,000 worth of receipts that they have been reviewing from Mayor Greg Davis' expenses were not city-related business.

During its Tuesday night regular scheduled board meeting, aldermen said they personally took the results of their review of the receipts to Mississippi Auditor Stacey Pickering's office last week in Jackson.

"I'd say out of the 500 pages of documents we reviewed, I only accepted six receipts where I can say I was in attendance on city business," said Alderman Ronnie Hale. "The rest of the receipts were of a personal nature that I could not sign off on."

State auditors, who have demanded that Davis repay more than $170,000 in expenses, penalties and interest to the city, asked aldermen to review receipts the mayor submitted in an effort to reduce the repayment amount.

Davis has already repaid to the state $96,000. He still owes $74,000.

The aldermen have been poring over the $44,000 receipts for weeks.

Among the receipts under review are those for dinner expenses at a local restaurant, the Mesquite Chop House, that Davis said were about city business.

A review of the receipts at which Davis listed aldermen as being in attendance show dinners dating to 2009 and totaling a little more than $6,500. The largest dinner bill was July 7 and totaled $1,349.36.

Alderman William Brooks said he only signed off on one item in the receipts and that was for last year's annual Blue Ribbon trip to Washington, where city and county leaders travel to lobby lawmakers to raise federal funding for local projects.

Brooks said he was appalled and angered by many of the items in the receipts, particularly the large tips Davis left when when dining on the city's tab.

"I do consider the tips egregious, and there is no way to justify that," Brooks said about Davis' tipping that included him leaving $100 for a $37.88 bill last June at the Mesquite Chophouse.

"I do apologize to the public for not being able to say as much about this entire ordeal because we have been advised by our attorney that this is an ongoing investigation, and to not compromise the integrity of the investigation.

"But I understand why people are angry. I am angry too."

The board not justifying most of the receipts was the first of several actions they took against the mayor during Tuesday's meeting.

They unanimously voted to revoke a 1999 resolution where Davis was granted by the board at that time the authority to conduct city business on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week basis.

Davis pointed to that resolution as justification for his expenses.

But the board said the revocation of the resolution will now require the mayor to comply with new policies and procedures that the board adopted recently that will require the board's prior approval on travel and expenses.

Aldermen Ricky Jobes then made a recommendation that Bradley Wallace, Southaven's director of operations, research how much it would cost the city to give the mayor a city car versus reimbursing him monthly mileage for driving his personal car.

Before the meeting ended, Hale also apologized to citizens for not allowing the public to speak at its Dec. 20 meeting.

"It was done inadvertently," Hale said.

"These are public meetings, and the public has a right to speak if they want to say something."